![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Dr. Who 3/29.10 Blink
Stephen Moffat: scariest Who writer ever. I am awed, Sir, I am awed.
This really surpassed Moffat's own "Are you my mummy?" in sheer scariness, and as with the automatons in last year's Moffat masterpiece, Girl in the Fireplace, the Angels combine aesthetics, childhood fears (things moving when you don't look) and an odd lack of malice which makes them even scarier. The automatons did what they were programmed to do. The Angels are, as the Doctor puts it, the gentlest assassins ever - they don't even directly kill, they place a person in a different time. Which makes them far more frightening than moustache twirling villains.
Sally et all were all endearing one shot characters, and yet another wonderful example of how you can make such characters come alive within the space of a single episode, or even just five minutes - Sally's friend Catherine and Billy the copper being cases in point. And wow, was the time travel concept ever used well. I'm sure nitpickers will find a plot hole, but I can't think of a single one right now. On a self-centred note, I'm thrilled to bits the Doctor and Martha ended up in the year I was born (the year of the moon landing). Also, I hope we'll get lots of fanfic about the period they were stuck there, shared domesticity, Martha being irritated she has to be the one earning the income again while the Doctor builds his detection thingie, banter and hopefully some nice late 60s concerts.
Back to the stars of the episode: Sally had just the right mixture of courage and fear, and her scene with Old Billy touched me deeply. As with GitF, it brought home the meta-ness of Moffat's writing. The Doctor visiting Reinette through various windows in her life worked as a metaphor for tv, the viewer watching only selected periods of the characters' lives and becoming more and more involved, and it worked as a metaphor for how all human lives must appear to him, going from childhood to the grave in such a short period. Here, it's even shorter; entire lives gone in the blink of an eye.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person, though they don't forget that person - and if true, I'm all for it, because said concept and its popularity in fandom is starting to freak me out. I mean, I have characters wo work for me better with each other than they do with other characters, too, but that doesn't mean I think any one of them will be happy only with each other.
A lot of the episode is a geek out of the first order - the idea of the easter eggs, complaining the windows of the TARDIS are the wrong size, etc. - but never in a gratitious way. Oh, and for those of us keeping track: the Angels tricked by the Doctor into turning themselves into stone? Are the third adversaries condemmed into eternal captivity (after the witches in Shakespeare Code and the Family in Family of Blood, though with the Angels, it's arguable whether or not they are conscious in this state or really just stone (we're never told), so it might not be a fate of the same horror. Still, I sense a theme here.
Next week: that other person who sees immortality as a punishment. Hello, Captain Jack!
This really surpassed Moffat's own "Are you my mummy?" in sheer scariness, and as with the automatons in last year's Moffat masterpiece, Girl in the Fireplace, the Angels combine aesthetics, childhood fears (things moving when you don't look) and an odd lack of malice which makes them even scarier. The automatons did what they were programmed to do. The Angels are, as the Doctor puts it, the gentlest assassins ever - they don't even directly kill, they place a person in a different time. Which makes them far more frightening than moustache twirling villains.
Sally et all were all endearing one shot characters, and yet another wonderful example of how you can make such characters come alive within the space of a single episode, or even just five minutes - Sally's friend Catherine and Billy the copper being cases in point. And wow, was the time travel concept ever used well. I'm sure nitpickers will find a plot hole, but I can't think of a single one right now. On a self-centred note, I'm thrilled to bits the Doctor and Martha ended up in the year I was born (the year of the moon landing). Also, I hope we'll get lots of fanfic about the period they were stuck there, shared domesticity, Martha being irritated she has to be the one earning the income again while the Doctor builds his detection thingie, banter and hopefully some nice late 60s concerts.
Back to the stars of the episode: Sally had just the right mixture of courage and fear, and her scene with Old Billy touched me deeply. As with GitF, it brought home the meta-ness of Moffat's writing. The Doctor visiting Reinette through various windows in her life worked as a metaphor for tv, the viewer watching only selected periods of the characters' lives and becoming more and more involved, and it worked as a metaphor for how all human lives must appear to him, going from childhood to the grave in such a short period. Here, it's even shorter; entire lives gone in the blink of an eye.
londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person, though they don't forget that person - and if true, I'm all for it, because said concept and its popularity in fandom is starting to freak me out. I mean, I have characters wo work for me better with each other than they do with other characters, too, but that doesn't mean I think any one of them will be happy only with each other. A lot of the episode is a geek out of the first order - the idea of the easter eggs, complaining the windows of the TARDIS are the wrong size, etc. - but never in a gratitious way. Oh, and for those of us keeping track: the Angels tricked by the Doctor into turning themselves into stone? Are the third adversaries condemmed into eternal captivity (after the witches in Shakespeare Code and the Family in Family of Blood, though with the Angels, it's arguable whether or not they are conscious in this state or really just stone (we're never told), so it might not be a fate of the same horror. Still, I sense a theme here.
Next week: that other person who sees immortality as a punishment. Hello, Captain Jack!
no subject
In relation to Cathy and Laurence, it is a bit predestined, but that's a bit different from them being separated and never having a life again.
no subject
In relation to Cathy and Laurence, it is a bit predestined, but that's a bit different from them being separated and never having a life again.
I agree, but seriously, I thought he was her brother, not her husband... did I get that completely wrong?
no subject
no subject
more opaqueeasier to understand, let me present you the solution to our (double or maybe triple) misunderstanding."londonkds suggests this is also Moffat's second stroke (after GitF) against the One True Love concept - both Catherine and Billy are able to live full, happy lives after being separated from their original ones; they don't spent their existence pining away for one person"
and since I didn't read your original post, I didn't get that Catherine was just a typo and that you were talking about Sally and Billy, which of course makes a lot more sense.
no subject
no subject